Network communications are performed to transfer data. Accordingly, one of functions of a network device is to perform high-efficiency data transfer. A function of the network device on a basic data plane of Internet protocol is routing search. The network device determines a next hop and an egress port for each received data packet according to prefix information in a routing table. Wildcard characters and Longest Prefix Matching (LPM) of Classless Inter-Domain Routing (CIDR) in the routing table make the routing search complex.